History AudienceAlienatingEra / ComicStrips

* For a while in UsefulNotes/TheSixties, classic comic strip ''ComicStrip/DickTracy'' tried to capitalize on the ongoing [[UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace Space Race]] by sending its characters [[RecycledInSpace TO THE MOON!]] One character even got married to a "Moon Maid". After the moon landing, however, the moon and most of the sci-fi elements were dropped from the strip, and Dick Tracy went back to old-fashioned crimefighting...

* Due to the rather static nature of ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', it can be difficult to tell whether the strip is in one or not. The general consensus is that the comic became horribly stagnant starting in the late 1990s – during this period, nearly every single weekday strip consisted of Jon and Garfield at the table and most Sunday strips dealt with the spiders. The base broke when Jon and Liz became a couple (with many fans accusing the comic of [[JumpedTheShark jumping the shark]]), because it destroyed the potential for any future "Jon has a horrible love life and/or has insane wacky dates" jokes – a major theme of the strip.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' seemed to hit one in the late-Aughties as Garry Trudeau spent more and more of the strip's time focusing on the Iraq War, eschewing most of the political satire he was known for in favor of observations that were rarely funny. The nadir came when he spent several months on B.D. losing his leg and Alex's boyfriend returning to America after getting brain damage from an IED. Even if they were important issues to address, it was still a jarring (and unwelcome) ToneShift, and Trudeau was not nearly as maudlin with his strip during the Vietnam War.

* ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' was simple enough – a wacky comic that took place in a high-school. Years later, after a few in-universe {{timeskip}}s, it became one of the most dark and depressing comics ever syndicated. Constant mention of cancer, death, suicide, characters trapped in a miserable world, and even a story arc of one of the major characters getting cancer and slowly dying from it for the reading public to follow. Even its sister comic ''ComicStrip/{{Crankshaft}}'' (which is in the same continuity) can't escape the constant gloom that all the characters suffer from. This isn't a dramatic exaggeration either; read Funky Winkerbean's trope page.

* There are lots of opinions on when the GoldenAge for ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' was, how far it fell from that over the years, and exactly when the SeasonalRot first set in, but everyone agrees that the 1980s were the strip's weakest decade, with frequent rehashing of old ideas, misguided attempts at relevance, and the inexplicable rise of [[CreatorsPet Snoopy's brother Spike]]. Some of this was due to [[RealLifeWritesThePlot circumstances beyond Schulz's control]], namely a heart attack that forced him to slow down his working pace. While some fans maintain that the strip enjoyed a creative renaissance in the 1990s, others believe that it never really recovered from its '80s doldrums, often citing the increasingly scratchy art. This too was a side-effect of Schulz's heart attack; though he recovered, his motor skills started to deteriorate.

* There are lots of opinions on when the GoldenAge for ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' was, how far it fell from that over the years, and exactly when the SeasonalRot first set in, but everyone agrees that the 1980s were the strip's weakest decade, with frequent rehashing of old ideas, misguided attempts at [[WereStillRelevantDammit relevance]], and the inexplicable rise of [[CreatorsPet Snoopy's brother Spike]]. Some of this was due to [[RealLifeWritesThePlot circumstances beyond Schulz's control]], namely a heart attack that forced him to slow down his working pace. While some fans maintain that the strip enjoyed a creative renaissance in the 1990s, others believe that it never really recovered from its '80s doldrums, often citing the increasingly scratchy art. This too was a side-effect of Schulz's heart attack; though he recovered, his motor skills started to deteriorate.

** True purists of the strip might contend that ''Garfield'' entered its greatest AAE in the late '80s, [[ItsPopularNowItSucks when the strip was at the height of its popularity]]. Maybe it was an attempt to compete with the new breed of zany and/or surreal strips such as ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', maybe it was a blatant attempt to appeal to children... but for whatever reason, ''Garfield'' descended to pure absurdism. Jon Arbuckle changed from a modestly cool guy to an outright {{Nerd}}, Odie went from being merely TheDitz to being utterly braindead (and to [[ToiletHumor drooling a lot]] - seriously, a ''lot''), and Garfield himself unexpectedly transforming from the passive-aggressive SnarkKnight he was originally to a certifiable {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, wearing banana peels on his head and grinning like an idiot. Of course, this was also during the debut of the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' TV cartoon, so maybe a little zaniness was necessary in order to keep everything consistent.

* ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' is widely considered to have ended on one of these, then restarted on another. It became a soapbox for the creator's very dated (and somewhat warped) views and beliefs. Not helping is the reboot seems to be designed to vilify John (who was based on her ex-husband) as much as possible.

* With ''ComicStrip/{{BC}}'', near the end of his life, Johnny Hart became very heavily Christian, and started [[AuthorFilibuster shoehorning his fundamentalist beliefs into the comic]], leading to some controversy (one infamous Sunday strip had a menorah morph into a cross). After Hart's death, his kids took over the strip and changed it back to its original light comedy format.
* ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' was simple enough – a wacky comic that took place in a high-school. Years later, after a few in-universe {{timeskip}}s, it became one of the most dark and depressing comics ever syndicated. Constant mention of cancer, death, suicide, characters trapped in a miserable world, and even a story arc of one of the major characters getting cancer and slowly dying from it for the reading public to follow. Even its sister comic ''ComicStrip/{{Crankshaft}}'' (which is in the same continuity) can't escape the constant gloom that all the characters suffer from. This isn't an dramatic exaggeration either; read Funky Winkerbean's trope page.

** True purists of the strip might contend that ''Garfield'' entered its greatest Audience Alienating Era in the late '80s, [[ItsPopularNowItSucks when the strip was at the height of its popularity]]. Maybe it was an attempt to compete with the new breed of zany and/or surreal strips such as ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', maybe it was a blatant attempt to appeal to children... but for whatever reason, ''Garfield'' descended to pure absurdism. Jon Arbuckle changed from a modestly cool guy to an outright {{Nerd}}, Odie went from being merely TheDitz to being utterly braindead (and to [[ToiletHumor drooling a lot]] - seriously, a ''lot''), and Garfield himself unexpectedly transforming from the passive-aggressive SnarkKnight he was originally to a certifiable {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, wearing banana peels on his head and grinning like an idiot. Of course, this was also during the debut of the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' TV cartoon, so maybe a little zaniness was necessary in order to keep everything consistent.

{{Dork Age}}s in comic strips.

** ... then the strip almost immediately stumbled into a ''second'' Dork Age with its faux-{{blaxploitation}}[=/=]"[[JiveTurkey street-wise]]" 1970s style, including giving Tracy [[https://www.heritagestatic.com/comics/i/newsletter/022113-1.jpg a god-awful mustache]] and longer hair. And lest you think "god-awful" is putting it too strongly, we should inform you that even in-universe, Tracy's friends hated his mustache so much that they eventually forced him to shave it off.
** Both of these periods (which may as well have been a single long one) carry the undercurrent of creator Chester Gould's increasing conservatism. Starting in the early 1960s, Gould would regularly halt the story progression to rant about the Warren Court's decisions on the rights of the accused. Like the more obvious Dork Age mentioned above, these {{author filibuster}}s would only stop with Gould's retirement in 1977.
** The strip would eventually hit a third Dork Age from 2006 to 2011, which is widely considered to be its absolute worst period. A combination of artist Dick Locher's advancing years and the failure to replace writer Mike Kilian after his death led to five years that were marked by atrociously bad artwork and stories that tended to drag on for three or four months without much of anything happening, before everything was suddenly and unsatisfactory wrapped up in just a few days. Fortunately, the strip was able to recover yet again when Locher left and was replaced by Joe Staton and Mike Curtis.

** More infamously, around this same time in the late 1990s, the strip – which actually has quite a large ensemble cast – cut back on the appearances of nearly every side character (Nermal for instance), in favour of just Jon and Garfield with occasional Odie. Later, Liz's increased role led to even Odie only showing up even less occasionally.
** True purists of the strip might contend that ''Garfield'' entered its greatest Dork Age in the late '80s, [[ItsPopularNowItSucks when the strip was at the height of its popularity]]. Maybe it was an attempt to compete with the new breed of zany and/or surreal strips such as ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', maybe it was a blatant attempt to appeal to children... but for whatever reason, ''Garfield'' descended to pure absurdism. Jon Arbuckle changed from a modestly cool guy to an outright {{Nerd}}, Odie went from being merely TheDitz to being utterly braindead (and to [[ToiletHumor drooling a lot]] - seriously, a ''lot''), and Garfield himself unexpectedly transforming from the passive-aggressive SnarkKnight he was originally to a certifiable {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, wearing banana peels on his head and grinning like an idiot. Of course, this was also during the debut of the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' TV cartoon, so maybe a little zaniness was necessary in order to keep everything consistent.

* ''ComicStrip/MarkTrail'' descended into one in the late-10s and early-20s, as writer and artist James Allen -- who, ironically, had previously been credited for pulling the strip out of a creative slump that began during the final years of previous artist Jack Elrod's tenure -- began to lose touch with reality. Among other notable incidents, he drew someone he'd had a Twitter fight with into the comic, portrayed him as an idiot, and then had him die in an avalanche. Allen was forced off of the strip after using his Twitter account (which had Mark Trail's name in its handle) to harass female members of Congress, and was replaced with Jules Rivera, who took the strip in a bizarre new direction that some fans disliked, but was generally considered to be an acceptable change after the Allen years.

* ''ComicStrip/MarkTrail'' descended into one in the late-10s and early-20s, as writer and artist James Allen -- who ironically, had previously been credited for pulling the strip out of a creative slump that began during the final years of previous artist Jack Elrod's tenure -- began to lose touch with reality. Among other notable incidents, he drew someone he'd had a Twitter fight with into the comic, portrayed him as an idiot, and then had him die in an avalanche. Allen was forced off of the strip after using his Twitter account (which had Mark Trail's name in its handle) to harass female members of Congress, and was replaced with Jules Rivera, who took the strip in a bizarre new direction that some fans disliked, but was generally considered to be an acceptable change after the Allen years.

* ''ComicStrip/MarkTrail'' descended into one in the late-10s and early-20s, as writer and artist James Allen began to lose touch with reality. Among other notable incidents, he drew someone he'd had a Twitter fight with into the comic, portrayed him as an idiot, and then had him die in an avalanche. Allen was forced off of the strip after using his Twitter account (which had Mark Trail's name in its handle) to harass female members of Congress, and was replaced with Jules Rivera, who took the strip in a bizarre new direction that some fans disliked, but was generally considered to be an acceptable change after the Allen years.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' seemed to hit one in the late-Aughties as Garry Trudeau spent more and more of the strip's time focusing on the Iraq War, eschewing most of the political satire he was known for in favor of observations that were rarely funny. The nadir came when he spent several months on B.D. losing his leg and Alex's boyfriend returning to America after getting brain damage from an IED. SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped, certainly, but Trudeau was not nearly as maudlin with his strip during the Vietnam War.

* ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' was simple enough – a wacky comic that took place in a high-school. Years later, after a few in-universe {{timeskip}}s, it became one of the most dark and depressing comics ever syndicated. Constant mention of cancer, death, characters trapped in a miserable world, and even a story arc of one of the major characters getting cancer and slowly dying from it for the reading public to follow. Even its sister comic ''ComicStrip/{{Crankshaft}}'' (which is in the same continuity) can't escape the constant gloom that all the characters suffer from. This isn't an dramatic exaggeration either; read Funky Winkerbean's trope page.

** True purists of the strip might contend that ''Garfield'' entered its greatest Dork Age in the late '80s, [[ItsPopularNowItSucks when the strip was at the height of its popularity]]. Maybe it was an attempt to compete with the new breed of zany and/or surreal strips such as ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', maybe it was a blatant attempt to appeal to children... but for whatever reason, ''Garfield'' descended to pure absurdism. Jon Arbuckle changed from a modestly cool guy to an outright {{Nerd}}, Odie went from being merely TheDitz to borderline retarded (and to [[ToiletHumor drooling a lot]] - seriously, a ''lot''), and Garfield himself unexpectedly transforming from the passive-aggressive SnarkKnight he was originally to a certifiable {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, wearing banana peels on his head and grinning like an idiot. Of course, this was also during the debut of the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' TV cartoon, so maybe a little zaniness was necessary in order to keep everything consistent.